tail for monitoring messages from now till Ctrl-c

That statement makes me think that you are interested specifically in emulating tail -f. File::Tail exists. You probably won't be able to use it directly as your data resides in a database, but you might find the code to be helpful. Essentially, you are going to need to sit in a loop and poll your db every so often for changes. Nothing real difficult in that.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";